Abstract: A web scoring and/or perforating apparatus for signature folding machines or the like including first and second rollers. Each roller has a scoring or perforating blade portion and a resilient roller portion. The rollers are mounted, preferably, on existing, rotatably driven nip roller shafts, upstream of web folding stages in web handling systems. The blade portion of one roller is arranged to interact with the resilient portion of the other roller. Arc lengths of the scoring or perforating roller blade portions and the resilient roller portions are substantially equal to each other and to the fold line of a signature. The rollers, between which the web is advanced, are positioned and oriented to score or perforate portions of the web in alternating directions which correspond to the direction of folding of each layer of the web.

Abstract: Prefold, web scoring apparatus for signature folding machines or the like comprises mating first and second web scoring rollers, each scoring roller having alternating scoring blade and resilient roller portions. The scoring rollers are mounted, preferably on existing, rotatably driven nip roll shafts, upstream of a first web folding stage in which the web is cut into sheets and the sheets are transversely folded, the folded sheets being fed therefrom to a second web folding stage for folding at right angles to the first stage fold. Arc lengths of each of the scoring roller blade and resilient roller portions is equal in length to the second stage fold line. The scoring rollers, between which the web is advanced, are positioned and oriented on their mounting shafts so as to score the web in alternating directions corresponding to the direction of folding of each paper layer in the second folding stage.